


找碴 | to find fault with, to pick a fight

by virdant



Series: 吃飽了嗎? | Have you eaten your fill? [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Discussions and Arguments, Gen, Jedi Appreciation (Star Wars), Jedi Culture, Jedi Culture Respected, Tea, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Obi-Wan and Anakin; Morning tea and discussions.--“Is this what Jedi do, drink tea instead of freeing slaves?”Obi-Wan sets his cup down. “How would you free the slaves, Anakin?”Anakin has a lightsaber. He is strong in the Force. The answer is at the tip of his tongue.Obi-Wan pours himself more tea. He is precise. He is graceful. He has practiced this ceremony over a hundred times over the years. He hopes he will never have to stop, never have to pick up his saber when a well-performed tea ceremony will serve instead.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: 吃飽了嗎? | Have you eaten your fill? [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832875
Comments: 35
Kudos: 306





	找碴 | to find fault with, to pick a fight

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to alanna, who read the first draft and sent me reassuring words.
> 
> title is a taiwanese-style pun, where taiwanese-style mandarin results in little differentiation between zh- and z- sounds. in this case, the phrase for "to pick a fight" sounds similar to "morning tea". 
> 
> \--
> 
> 早茶 (zao-cha) | morning tea  
> 找碴 (zhao-cha) | to find fault with, to pick a fight

Anakin swings out of their quarters with barely a greeting. Obi-Wan has enough time to blink and open his mouth before he’s out—to classes, probably. Anakin is taking exams to advance to Senior Padawan soon, and Obi-Wan saw Anakin’s scores in the last Core Cultures and Traditions exam. Even after years in Coruscant, Anakin still struggles.

Obi-Wan drinks his tea. Today he made it the first way he’s been taught, head bent in supplication, careful and precise. He tried to teach Anakin, when Anakin was new to the temple. But Anakin is bright and brash, enthusiastic and energetic. He has never taken to the stillness of morning teas, no matter how many times and how many ways Obi-Wan tried to teach him.

Obi-Wan cradles the cup—a tall, narrow ceramic mug with no handle—with one hand, the other resting underneath to support it. He inhales the aroma: rich and earthy. He sips. It’s a flavorful green, an early harvest from Corellia he’s partial to in the morning. He picked it this morning because Anakin liked it as a child.

Obi-Wan keeps a variety of teas in the kitchen. As Qui-Gon’s padawan, they spent many hours in quiet contemplation together, tea before them. Obi-Wan learned to steep tea, to pour, to serve with exquisite precision, in hundreds of different ways. Different planets have their traditions, and Obi-Wan was not expected to just learn in the classroom. He was Qui-Gon’s padawan, after all, and there were expectations with being apprenticed to one of the Order’s most illustrated diplomats. Obi-Wan spent many hours pouring tea.

He still falls back on his training. Every morning he picks a different planet, prepares it according to their customs. They used to do this before missions, a reminder of planetary customs and an affirmation of their preparation. Obi-Wan still goes on missions now, but he prepares on his own.

Once, Anakin used to join him, in the mornings. He does not anymore. The quarters he shares with Anakin is quiet. Obi-Wan finishes his tea slowly, meditatively. When he’s done, he cleans everything up. He sets the unused mug back into the cabinet, as he has done every day this past week.

* * *

Anakin does not adjust well to the Temple.

Obi-Wan tries. He teaches Anakin how to fold dumplings. Anakin would rather fix droids. He fills his plate during hotpot gatherings with Master Yoda, the only one of their lineage still in the temple. Anakin is still and petulant in the Grandmaster’s presence. He tries to teach him tea ceremonies, citing it as important for the diplomatic missions they will be sent on.

Anakin is impatient. He looks to the stars and does not understand why he cannot impose his will on the Galaxy. He can make things right, he thinks. Obi-Wan pours tea and tries to teach him the customs of the planets they will visit, and Anakin remembers long enough to pass his exams and forgets afterwards.

Obi-Wan cradles his tea with both hands. He brushes a finger along the rim, as is custom. He lifts the mug as if to toast, and then sips.

Anakin is not here to respond, but Obi-Wan drinks, regardless.

* * *

Anakin is strong in the Force, a blazing sun of power. It’s difficult to make him practice the basics when he blazes through the exercises with all his power. The only time he seems to slow down is when he is faced with classes that test his knowledge of politics and cultures, and he faces them with resent.

Obi-Wan tries to help. “Come practice Chandrila’s tea ceremony,” he urges. He’s laid out the pieces already: the round pot, the small cups.

Anakin sighs. “Do I have to?”

“What if you’re sent on a mission to Chandrila?” Or if they’re sent to liaison with Chandrila’s senator. Or a myriad of other scenarios, that Obi-Wan prepared for during his own time as a padawan.

“How will tea help?”

Obi-Wan ignores the scorn. “It’s good to know.” Obi-Wan has gained more from tea and judicious knowledge of mealtime customs than he has through his lightsaber.

Anakin sits. He slouches, even though Obi-Wan tries to nudge his posture straight. He pours with both hands instead of the one that Chandrilian tea ceremonies call for. He slurps when the heat scalds his tongue. Obi-Wan keeps his voice level and patient as he makes corrections. 

“This is pointless.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. “We must always seek a peaceful solution.” The words are familiar—Qui-Gon used to say it to him during his own complaints.

And, too often, the peaceful solution is tea.

“Try again.” Obi-Wan clears the setting on the table. “Remember what I taught you.”

Anakin pours with one hand—clumsily, but one-handed. Obi-Wan will have to teach him how to augment his touch with the Force, in the future, if Anakin will not practice. He sips silently, careful not to scald his tongue, or perhaps because his tongue is already burned. His posture is better.

Obi-Wan follows, watching carefully.

Anakin is almost a Senior Padawan, old enough to have power, too young to be trusted on his own with it.

“Is this what Jedi do, drink tea instead of freeing slaves?”

Obi-Wan sets his cup down. “How would you free the slaves, Anakin?”

Anakin has a lightsaber. He is strong in the Force. The answer is at the tip of his tongue.

Obi-Wan pours himself more tea. He is precise. He is graceful. He has practiced this ceremony over a hundred times over the years. He hopes he will never have to stop, never have to pick up his saber when a well-performed tea ceremony will serve instead.

“Drink your tea,” Obi-Wan says.

Anakin does.

“How will you free the slaves, Anakin?”

Anakin has his answer, but he does not say it.

Obi-Wan drinks as well. He has a plethora of tea ceremonies memorized. He has studied the languages of dozens of planets throughout the Galaxy, learned about the cultures of a hundred more. He would have every assignment be like this: words exchanged over tea, the steady give and take of a conversation and the inexorable erosion of wills with each wash of tea.

“Jedi are peacekeepers, not warriors.”

“But we could do so much more.”

“Is more better?”

Anakin stares. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Better for who?”

Anakin’s eyes narrow. “Slavery isn’t good.”

“No.” He pours another cup for himself. Chandrilian cups are small things of crystal, holding barely a mouthful of tea. The ceremony calls for perpetual pours. “Will you subjugate a people to keep them from subjugating others? Will you slaughter to prevent slaughter?”

Anakin doesn’t drink. He doesn’t pour.

“Some battles are better fought with tea,” Obi-Wan says. Violence begets violence in a perpetual cycle. Violence leads to trauma. Trauma lashes out as violence. Over and over, the cycle continues unless it is broken. It takes strength to break the cycle. Satine understood this. The Jedi understand this. He would have Anakin learn this.

He pours and drinks, he pours and drinks. He lets his heartbeat slow as if in meditation, settling into mindfulness: the slow contemplation of his emotions when faced with injustice, tempering his anger at the cruelty of the world until his heart beats steadily and he can see the threads of the Force connecting the world together as clearly as he can. He is just a piece of it, a brush along the tangled snarls of darkness. He would have no violence in the world, just peace. He would see the cycle broken in the way he learned—through tea ceremonies and careful discussion, through an accord built of peace.

Anakin is still young, and so strong in the Force. He could bend the world to his will, if he wanted to.

Obi-Wan does not want to bend the world to his will. He wants a cup of tea and Light. He does not want to force peace. He wants peace to be achieved.

“Recall your lessons,” Obi-Wan says. “Be mindful of your feelings.”

Anakin looks down at the tea. His cup is empty. “I’m not scared.”

Obi-Wan does not mention that he said nothing of fear.

“I’m not scared,” Anakin repeats, but he does not pour himself more tea.

Obi-Wan pours for him. One-handed. Steady. He did this for Qui-Gon once, before accompanying him to a dispute they had to negotiate. He sets the pot down. “Then let’s try again.”

Anakin straightens. He pours. He drinks. He’ll pass any exam that calls for the Chandrilian tea ceremony, even if he isn’t as practiced as he could be. 

He does not tell Obi-Wan how he would free the slaves, and Obi-Wan does not press him.

* * *

Anakin still does not join him for morning tea. 

Obi-Wan spars with him, guides him on his coursework as he prepares for his exams, meditates with him. Every morning Anakin rushes out the door, and Obi-Wan drinks tea on his own. 

Today he prepares tea according to Stewjon’s customs. He selects the wide flat cup, cradles it with both hands, drinks it slowly, as if cupping his hands to his mouth.

He kneels before the table, bows his head, and drinks. The sun is rising, slowly, and he lets his heart sink into meditation, lets himself open himself to the Force, lets himself sink into himself and see his place in the world.

Then he opens his eyes, cleans the tea ceremony aside, and begins the day.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! 
> 
> ❤️ Enjoyed it?
> 
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> 



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